


Desert Winds Rather Than Mountain Air

by Silberias



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 22:27:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3745837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Catelyn Stark leaves King's Landing telling even her old friend Petyr Baelish that she is taking her daughters back to Winterfell. Instead she takes them, without telling Ned, to Dorne because if anyone will believe a tale of Lannister treachery it will be the Martells of Dorne. </p><p>She realizes, as she reaches the gates of Sunspear, that she is really no better than her father was all those years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desert Winds Rather Than Mountain Air

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Ned had sent the girls with her along with a Braavosi swordsman named Syrio Forel--they were to return to Winterfell but she did not heed her husband in this. Instead, Lady Catelyn Stark took to the Roseroad and later the Boneway into Dorne. She knew who would support her in exposing and overthrowing the Lannisters--it would be a longshot, of course, but they would believe her. The Martells, one of whom she'd once contemplated a marriage to, would help. It was, she recalled, to have been a wedding of some renown--the Lady Fish wed to the Prince Snake.

Sansa had cried the whole way from King's Landing to Summerhall, comforted not a whit by Cat's reassurances that they would return her to the capitol to be a Princess as soon as proof--whatever it may be--was found or a war won. Arya was more excited and willing but there was a certain wall she'd put up between Cat and Sansa, a begrudging protectiveness of her elder sister. It made Cat miss Lysa in a way she'd not known since she was a girl.

Dorne was still unbearably hot in the face of the coming winter and Cat was unbelievably glad _and_ unbelievably embarrassed to have Lady Marleyn Manwoody take pity on them with airy dresses made of sheer Tyroshi silks. If Sansa had not been sulking, she might have liked to flutter the new silken cape behind her as they rode for Sunspear. It took nearly three weeks to cross Dorne along the northron coast, during which time she was relieved to see that her daughters each began to forgive her for taking them from the clutches of the Crown. That they recognized it at all was a boon. Arya tanned as brown as a nut whilst Sansa burned in the sun as easily as Cat herself did, developing a dusting of freckles that everyone was careful to avoid pointing out.

It was as they road up to the gates of Sunspear, a city larger than White Harbor but smaller than King's Landing, and were greeted that Catelyn realized her reasons for bringing her girls instead of sending them to their brothers in Winterfell. _I am no better than my lord father, Hoster_ , she realized in short-lived despair. It would have to be done, whatever had to be done would be done. For Bran--for twenty years of betrayals and Lannister lies.

There was one man standing at the gates, flanked by several dozen knights and men-at-arms, and she remembered when she was a girl newly flowered. She remembered her septa telling her of those most eligible by rank or birth order to take her to wife. _Brandon or Eddard sons of Rickard Stark, Jon of House Arryn, Tywin of House Lannister, Rhaegar or Viserys of House Targaryen, and--ahem--Oberyn of the House Martell._ Even then the man had had a reputation, fearsome and carnal. Something to be whispered of in scandalized tones between herself and her sister. _No better than Father, but at least there is no tansy in this alliance written in maiden's blood_ , she thought to herself as she presented herself and her daughters to that fearsome man, Prince Oberyn of the House Martell.

* * *

 

Arya had taken to Prince Oberyn's daughters better than Sansa at first, but soon enough the beautiful Nymeria--affectionately titled Lady Nym--took Sansa under her wing and shared with her all the fripperies and luxuries of a pampered Dornish lady. As she took care of the negotiations--relaying her fears of Lannister treachery--Cat took comfort that each of the girls was adapting to Dorne.

Prince Doran's eyes, sad and dark, took in her words without much complaint or change. It was his younger brother who paced about the solar in an impotent rage, his mind hearing of the attempted murder of Bran in the same words and verbiage as the murders of his royal niece and nephew.

"You are of the South, Lady Stark, you understand that alliances are not made on handshakes and trust here. No matter how much we three might wish it, families must bind one another to the words of contracts and agreements," Prince Doran said, resting back into his chair, his attitude growing even more somber than she'd so far experienced. She was lucky--the Martells were more than willing to go to war over her crippled son, and moreover they had a ready claimant for the throne in the form of a Targaryen woman they'd found in Essos.

"I have two daughters, Prince Doran, you've two sons," she said, trying to avoid the inevitable. She knew, more personally than most, how this would be sealed. _Poor Lysa--poor Sansa_ , she thought as Prince Doran's face grew long.

"The first of which is promised to the Targaryen, and unless you wish him to take a second wife against all teachings of the Seven he cannot wed your girl. Given ages I would rather match my brother with you, believe me, but your husband yet lives. Were he dead much would be different--both you and Oberyn have proven well able to produce children, I can only imagine you of all people might give him a son even though he would love more daughters I know."

Her nerve failed her for a moment, wondering if Bran's fall was worth a rebellion, but then she remembered her father's words. Family--duty--honor. Bran was her family, and with marriage so too would the Martells of Dorne be her family. They would owe duty to each other, and do the honorable thing for one another. They were as devout as herself, she'd come to know, and would abide by such mores and traditions and rules. No matter that Prince Oberyn was a poisoner, they would lend their aid as honorably as was possible.

"I'd wanted someone kind, gentle, and strong for her," she said softly, finally nodding in agreement to what had tacitly been said.

"She will see no violence from me, and such beautiful gifts as are in my power to give will be hers. And," Prince Oberyn paused delicately, "Dornish septons are more understanding of matches such as these and do not demand the sheets due to them until a more appropriate time." Cat did not sag in relief, but she certainly gulped down the pleasant knowledge that she was not sending her daughter to the marriage bed so soon. Cat had been a bit older and far more ready than Sansa, but even she had felt too much a girl for the bed she'd shared with Ned.

"Then I am to assume that Arya goes to Prince Trystane?"

"Yes, if that serves. First we must get your husband out of King's Landing. Your eldest boy is little older than your eldest girl, and he'll need his father with him."

* * *

 

Septa Mordane had been oddly horrified by the proxy marriage she stood vigil for, Sansa reflected as she set out breakfast for herself and Prince Oberyn. Her septa and handmaiden both helped her, yawning as she herself resolutely did not. Her husband took a much lighter breakfast than had been usually prepared in Winterfell, but he liked a wider variety of things to choose from. Things he could pick on through the day if he was somehow trapped here in their rooms.

Their marriage was barely weeks behind them, sitting with bloodied palms clasped together in the sept as a group of septons and septas watched and prayed. Their hands were tied together, her right and his left bound with silver ribbon while his right and her left were bound with orange. Septa Mordane bound the silver while Septon Gurvid had taken care of the orange. Her husband was a merry sort when he was happy, and they'd shared stories through that long night of great patrons of the Faith as well as a long discussion of 'true knights' after which he had rested his forehead against hers and looked into her eyes in silence.

His daughters had banded around her, his paramour had taken to spending her afternoons with her, and Sansa tried to get used to the servants calling her "Princess Sansa." Arya ran wild still, not married but betrothed, while Sansa was given opportunity to take on running the household and the keep. Her husband's paramour, Ellaria, helped her at first. The woman was kind to her, praising her skills at management but poking gentle fun at her abilities with sums.

"You do not have to wake so early, my lady," Prince Oberyn said softly as he came out of his chamber in a loose tunic not tucked into his breeches. Sansa blushed, feeling slightly overdressed and silly despite never knowing what attire her husband might appear in each morning. It was better to be overdressed if one could help it, she knew, than under.

"I--" her words caught in her throat for a moment before she pushed past the nervousness. Her direwolf was dead for words unspoken and she would not repeat the mistake again. "I want to know you better, my lord. I--I want you to love me someday." She knew he was of an age with her parents, but as her mother had tenderly told her her aunt Lysa had been in a similar situation. _At least this one still has a head full of good black hair, not a gray pate such as Lord Arryn's for my lovely daughter._ Sansa's statement had taken her husband aback and he searched for words for a long few moments.

"Ours," he sucked in a deep breath of air, "ours is not meant to be such a match, my lady. The blood we share was exchanged in the sept before the septon. A lifetime of nights together encompassed at once, dear Sansa." Her face must have crumpled for he made his way across the room to her.

"Don't," she tried to say when he tried to take her hands in his, "don't. I'm not your daughter, I'm--I'm--"

"My wife, yes," he interrupted, smoothing the backs of his fingers against her cheek when she wouldn't give him her hands, "and one I will not touch as such for some years yet darling. Silver will have begun touching my head then, and unless I am both diligent and lucky my form will not be one that is so pleasing to your eye as it is now. That is also counting on the gods being favorable in the coming war."

Sansa looked down, taking hollow comfort in his touch. Even Joffrey had touched her more than Prince Oberyn did. She did not understand it, not in the slightest. _Joffrey at least said he loved me_ , she thought despondently as she tried to take a step away from the Dornishman her mother had had her married to. Prince Oberyn caught her up close though and she was able to look up into his face unlike when she gazed at Joffrey who was a bit shorter than she was.

"I will love you, in time I am sure. Love is not something any of us may force, though I am blessed that I love easily. Too easily according to you folk outside of Dorne, and too freely," his words came out teasing but without malice. Sansa thought then of the faint pink scars on her palms that matched ones on his--scars they would bear for the rest of their days to signify the legal consummation of marriage.

"But that cannot happen unless you know me," she murmured as he hugged her close, "and this hour of the day is the only one when you are not distracted by--by everything." Prince Oberyn laughed, chucking her chin up a little as he did so. His eyes, the darkest brown she'd ever seen, were glittering with warmth.

"My lady is a smart one. You learn very fast. Let us make a pact? I will court you as you would be courted, yes?" she gave him a tremulous smile at that but waited to hear the rest, "if you will let me teach you how to use a spear? Nothing too fancy, but I think it a fair trade."

* * *

 

Arya laughed at her relentlessly between her capers with her own betrothed, and Sansa had never felt more uncomfortable than when she was herded into breeches and a surcote that reached just past her hips. The spear in her hands was the least of her worries as she showed the form of her knees and thighs--never had she felt gangly before, but in the early morning sparring meetings she felt as badly formed as a goose. Certainly not someone's lady wife, much less a Princess of the House Martell.

Her husband was beautiful, as elegant as a running horse compared to her goose-ness.

Prince Oberyn was a deft hand at many weapons, but his first love was the spear. His second love was playing with herbs and minerals, to help and to harm, and in the first month he would sit with her and treat the blisters on her fingers and hands. The blisters he lanced while the broken skin on her knuckles he rubbed ointments into. She hated him on some moments, looking at the rough calluses on her once delicate hands, but at other times she found herself grinning with him.

Around them the Dornish prepared for war, a wily move having rescued her father from the execution block, and as such two armies and a host of sellswords were set to converge on King's Landing. Sansa tried to ignore the fact that every day that passed by drew them closer to war. The closer the war, the less time she would have with Prince Oberyn--left behind with his paramour, Ellaria, and his younger children. Like her mother had been left behind by the war twenty years ago. Sansa knew better than to hope she'd be blessed in the same way as her mother had been though.

Prince Oberyn had yet to do more than simply kiss her lightly on the mouth and even that was progress in her mind. She still rose early and broke her fast with him, trained with him, and then spent her afternoons with Ellaria Sand before sitting at her husband's elbow at the considerable suppers the family shared. Seven of his eight children, his paramour, his niece Arianne and nephew Quentyn, and a few cousins and retainers were all regular faces at the table in Sunspear. If anyone noticed any strain or strangeness between herself and Prince Oberyn, they did not mention it.

Instead the Dornish found reasons to compliment her skill with the spear, her kindness or sweetness, or even ask her about her home in the North. Save for Prince Oberyn, they treated her as though this marriage had always been planned and was thus was normal as wind.

* * *

 

Her husband was gone for three years as war engulfed the realm. Prince Oberyn wrote often, to both her and his paramour, and Sansa found herself missing him more and more as she would practice with Prince Doran's captain of the guard. Her skill with a spear would never be akin to those around them, but she wanted to show off for her husband when he returned.

She stood next to Prince Doran the day that the Dornish host returned to Sunspear, in breeches with a surcote that reached her knees. The garment was split up to her thighs on either side of it, the compromise she'd made in order to feel decent as well as be free to move properly. She'd argued the point that her lord husband wore long robes, tunics, and surcotes--why then could she not?

Prince Oberyn kissed Ellaria first, long and lingering to the point where Sansa had had to sincerely fight the urge to excuse herself and hide the rest of the day, and then he had stepped in front of her. She was the same height as her husband now, and he cupped her face between his hands to look into her eyes better. Sansa gave him a short smile before he was leaning in to kiss her as well. It was wholly unlike all those kisses he'd given to her before he'd left, much more even than the kiss he'd just given to Ellaria. This was one where he wrapped her close to his body and scarecly gave her time to breathe as his tongue sought hers and found it.

"I have missed you, wife," he said, lips still on hers for a moment before he tilted her head back to kiss at the pulse point under her jaw.

"And I you," she managed to say, flushing scarlet when she saw her parents walking through the crowds of soldiers towards them. The Dornish way was not the way her septa had taught her, or anything like what her mother or father had ever anticipated when they'd spoken of who she might wed. It was scandalous to be so tightly wound against Prince Oberyn, but he was not relinquishing his hold on her as he turned to better see her parents--his guests, she belatedly realized--and introduced the household to them.

Her father was still Hand, but now he was the Hand for a Queen--Daenerys Targaryen, who had adopted him as her own father as well. This woman rode behind Lord and Lady Stark while Sansa's brothers rode as her honor guard--even Bran, whose withered legs were strapped to the saddle so he could ride as tall as his brothers.

The years had taken a toll on these people, Sansa saw, but the only one she really worried over was her husband. There were silver hairs glinting through his black locks, and the crow crooks at his eyes were a bit more prominent than before, but outwardly he appeared to be the same. He'd sent no word of serious injuries sustained as the Baratheons were deposed and the Targaryens reinstalled as rulers of the Seven Kingdoms.

It had nearly been six, she'd heard recently from her goodbrother Prince Doran. The Targaryen woman had almost succumbed to the same sickness her brother Rhaegar had--seeing a beautiful, spirited Stark and _wanting_. Robb was promised to Shireen Baratheon, to save the girl's life, but that did not stop Queen Daenerys from trying to convince him to run away with her. The combined words of Prince Oberyn and Lord Eddard had only barely convinced both parties to abandon the idea. There was to be enough bloodshed and festering wounds in the war, two careless lovers did not need to complicate things more by causing the Dornish to secede.

"Come now, wife, I would wash the road from my hair before we convene for supper. You and Ellaria received my letters to prepare a feast?" she nodded, letting him lead the way into the keep.

* * *

 

He did not take her to bed in those first few weeks after his return and it had hurt her more than she let on to anyone but Arya. To her sister she'd forlornly said, the words soft for their crudeness, that the only shaft to be found in her bed was if she took her spear there with her. Arya, whose explorations with Prince Trystane were given a blind eye, had tutted sympathetically but otherwise had had little comfort to offer.

Oberyn _did_ take his paramour to his bed though. She could hear them sometimes when she was in the solar at night, laughing or moaning, though thankfully the sounds did not follow her to her own bedchamber. It made Sansa feel pathetic and slightly dirty for having slept in his bed a few times during some of the violent Dornish rainstorms over the last few years. She'd been half in love with him when he'd left Dorne and fallen the rest of the way since then from his letters--and it was one-sided.

It wasn't until she suggested, as he picked at the breakfast she'd laid out, that she exchange her room for Ellaria Sand's and give her own chamber to the woman that Oberyn seemed to realize anything was amiss.

"I have not brought it up with Ellaria yet," she'd hurriedly continued when he'd given her a queer look, "but I do not mind. It would seem to me easier for everyone if--"

"I appear to have been unfair to you, my lady," he countered with, "I wanted to avoid coercing you into my bed, and so contented myself with Ellaria as I did before. There was no...overt...invitation, and I did not wish to presume." Sansa flushed at his wording, embarrassed to speak so plainly of who he shared a bed with. Though his tone was soft and serious his eyes showed his glee at the turn of their conversation.

Sansa looked down at her food, the bountiful first harvest of the new Summer, and chewed on her lip rather than another bite of the meal. They'd written a great deal over the last several years, and was a year now that she'd been signing her missives _with my love, Sansa_ rather than the courteous _Seven keep you, your wife Sansa Martell._ She hadn't realized that such a thing would be missed so entirely.

"I did not think to...extend...an invitation," Sansa murmured, not meeting his gaze. She knew the fault lay with her here and she did not know how to rectify it. She had assumed he would lead the way, that she would not have to tread an unfamiliar path alone, but that was apparently the wrong thing to assume. She startled in her chair when Oberyn slid his own backwards and stood from the table. Sansa watched him through her lashes as he came around to stand next to her, one hand extended for her to take.

"Would my lady consent to a bit of," he paused with a wicked gleam to his eye, "marital attentions this morning?" Now she was most definitely blushing bright red, but Sansa laid her hand in his nonetheless and let him draw her up to stand.

"But breakfast--the sun's barely risen," she said softly, her protest only a token.

"And there is no better light to look at you in, I promise."

* * *

 

Sansa walked with him to his bedchamber, and he felt her fingertips trembling in his. Seventeen and never touched, he thought to himself as he kissed her. Not even Ellaria had had the pleasure of Sansa's attentions. The bright spring morning outside of his room spilled in through a line of windows that opened out to the harbor--he'd given up his view of the Narrow Sea to Sansa, and was glad of it now that the sunlight warmed but did not beat down on the stone floor. His little wife's hands were hesitant as he deepened the kisses he pressed to her mouth, and Oberyn unlatched the belt that held his robe closed and in place so she could smooth her fingers against his skin.

The early morning hour, fog still clinging to the shady parts of the harbor and the sun had yet to chase all of the purple and red from the sky, was indeed a wonderful time to look at Sansa. Her hair picked up gold and copper while her skin, still so very pale, was radiant in the sunlight. He walked her back to the bed and knelt before her to look at her better, to memorize all these details and more about her.

Her dress had three fasteners keeping the overdress closed and it was as though in a daze that he reached out to separate them, greedily drinking in the sound of Sansa's heated sigh as her underskirt and corset were revealed. Oberyn stood then and shrugged out of his robes, toeing off his sandals before urging his wife to stand as well. She watched him through lowered lashes as he slowly untied the laces keeping her skirts secure, then as he loosened the stays on her corset but made no move to divest her of either garment.

Sansa did not reach to unclothe herself further, at first, but instead reached for him with a kiss. Feeling her pressed up against him before had been nothing, he realized, not when he couldn't feel the weight of her breasts or the softness of her flanks as he did now. Her kisses were still hesitant, but Oberyn understood and led her.

All too soon he was nipping kisses to her jaw and down her throat, reveling in her whimpers and moans, and reaching the edge of her loose corset. Oberyn trailed reverent lips along the skin already revealed to him, kissing at the valley between her breasts, and then looking once more into her face. She was lovely, with high spots of color on her cheeks as she watched him with bright eyes. Sansa's lips were swollen from kisses, and Oberyn wanted to always see them thus.

"May I take you to bed, Sansa?" the question was a strange one to her for a long moment, but sudden clarity filled her eyes and she softly agreed. Oberyn grinned, kissing her as he helped her out of the last of her clothing--he still had his breeches on, but little else.

Oberyn knelt down once more in front of her, this time to kiss at her hip and smell her arousal through the thatch of auburn hair that concealed her sex. How he wanted to just have her lie back on the bed as he tasted that arousal for himself. He contented himself with a kiss before standing and shooing her back to the bed, shucking off his breeches and smallclothes as Sansa fidgeted with the end of one of her braids. The spots of color on her cheeks had spread to her ears and throat in a lovely way, but Oberyn knew it was a blush of self-consciousness. With the wrong word, she might run.

"Sansa, my love," he said as he got on the bed as well, reaching to turn her face to his with gentle fingertips, "if you would have other attentions, only tell me and I will gladly give them to you. You may change your mind, now, later, or even after."

She cupped his face in her hands, looking into his eyes as she pulled him over her, but Oberyn did not fall on her like some wild dog despite her actions.

"I would hear you say it, my love," he said, pecking a kiss to her lips but supporting his body up and away from hers.

"Oberyn, I want you to make love to me." He grinned at Sansa then, kissing her fiercely and settling one of his thighs between hers. She was a virgin, and he did not want to hurt her over-much. She might never share herself with him again if he didn't do this properly. Ellaria would slap him until he was addled if she got wind of it, too.

It was great fun teaching her to roll her hips and clench her sex against his fingers. It was in better to watch her nipples pebble and harden as he drew her to completion, her chest and face flushed as she gasped his name between whimpered begging for more. He was hard as a rock, watching this, but paid himself no mind as he worked her up through another orgasm. This one left her belly spasming and almost a scream drawn from her lips.

The fingers he'd had in her quim slipped and slid on her hips as he kissed down to her center and licked a stripe up it. This earned him a yelp of surprise from Sansa, and his mouth watered from the tangy moisture he'd lapped up. Without further ado, Oberyn put his mouth to her sex once more to coax a third climax out of her--and willingly let her push his head away from her once she'd recovered from it, spread out of his bed utterly sated and boneless.

His own arousal dissipated as they curled together, naked as their namedays, for an hour or more.

"You didn't--" she paused, embarrassed and tracing her fingers along the arm he'd slung over her, "you didn't take my maidenhead." Oberyn turned his nose to scent along the nape of her neck, learning what was soap and what was sweat and liking the mix of the two.

"No, no I did not. I will in due time, if you still wish to give it to me."

This caused her some confusion.

"You are my husband, it is my duty to give it to you. Everything--" her blush crept even over her shoulders to the back of her neck he saw with some amusement, "everything else is a pleasant extra. A--a wonderful extra." Oberyn resisted snorting in derision of the idea, knowing that his Dornish sensibilities were not what his wife needed now.

"It is my duty to shield you from pain and strife, if such is in my power. If you have another you would rather give yourself to at the first, name them and have them brought to your bedchamber. You are my wife, but I am your husband--we do not own one another. I am exceedingly fond of you, Sansa, but I am not the jealous type with my lovers."

She was quiet then for a long stretch, though she didn't make any moves to leave his arms, and Oberyn let his eyes drift shut as he waited. Her body was different from Ellaria's, different from many of the women he'd ever lain with.

"And if I do want to give it to you? Now?"

Oberyn didn't open his eyes but he did snake his hand to cover the mound of her sex, slipping one fingertip down through the hair to touch her clit.

"Still too sensitive?"

"Maybe, I don't think so," she whispered, her breath unsteady as he circled the nub of flesh there.

"Then next come some questions, before I go sliding my cock anywhere," he said, getting his other arm under her to change which hand teased her sex and which grasped at one of her exsquisite breasts. Oh how he and Ellaria had speculated about Sansa--would she be open to learning these things about pleasing her body, or would she shy away from them in confusion or fear?

"Do you want me to cover you, rest up on my elbows and kiss you as you lay on your back? Or would you have me under you, your kisses purposefully bestowed rather than granted?" She was moaning, low in her throat, as he touched her and gasped when he let go of her to rest on his knees beside her. Her eyes, wide and blue and wanting, met his as she rolled to her back and reached for his hand.

"I want you to teach me, I don't want to get lost," she said as her thighs came up to cradle his hips. Her sex was still wet from his attentions, and as Oberyn kissed her he pushed two fingers in to test her--and to perhaps stretch her quim again to minimize her later pain. He soon added a third and let her adjust to it with a few experimental thrusts. Her red hair, elaborately done for the day, was coming out of its braids and spreading out across the sheets like a flood of copper.

Sansa was just starting to keen with the edge of an orgasm just out of her reach when he removed his hand and guided the tip of his cock into her. He'd had a few virgins over the course of his life--some wanted it all at once to minimize the pain as they felt it. Others wanted it slowly, opening like flowers before him as he worked himself into their bodies. Oberyn had always liked the second option, for he got the friction his body craved as he rocked slowly deeper and deeper and his lovers had always been relieved that he'd understood their need--so he chose it as Sansa went a little tense in his arms.

Oberyn took his time, speaking low words of praise into his wife's ear as he finally eased his hips down to rest in the cradle of her own. She was breathing unevenly--through discomfort mixing poorly with pleasure, he knew--but her legs wrapped around him to hold him close and that was more than a fair start. When her inner muscles squeezed him on purpose--her blue eyes barely open as her lips fell apart with a silent moan--he started moving again.

The sounds of gentle lovemaking filled the room--the sound of his body on hers, her whimpers of pleasure and the keening of a woman about to climax, mixed with his grunts of praise and love. Sansa squeaked when he put his hand between them and touched her clit again, the sound quickly turning to a drawn out moan as it put her over the edge and she quaked in his arms. Oberyn, sweat pouring from him, anchored himself with both hands then and was beginning to start for his own release when she managed to draw a breath into a word.

"Don't--a babe, no--" his focus on his pleasure shattered then, bringing him back to the young woman that was his wife. The knowledge that she did not want his child was a knife through him, but he started to pull out of her anyway. She clutched at his hips, though, preventing him from leaving her. His confusion must have been written on his face for she cradled his face in her hands, stroking his cheeks.

"No, I want--I want one. I want you to, to give one to me, please. Don't spill outside," she managed to say, sweat-slicked tendrils of hair clinging to the sides of her face, a smile twitching on her face. Oberyn caught his breath in the crook of her neck then, chuckling once he could look up at her again.

"If that is what you would have from me, wife, I will endeavor to provide it," he said, brushing a kiss against her cheek, turning his attention then to her mouth and kissing her fiercely. She was tiring, her movements languid as he changed his rhythm to match hers. It was intense and almost better this way, everything around them quiet while they shared one another's breath.

When Oberyn finally spilled his seed in her he was as exhausted as she was, not even present enough to pull his cock out of her or clean up--only rolling to his side with her thigh hitched high over his hip. Sansa curled up close to him, tucking her head under his chin and dozing off. Oberyn petted at her hair, gently working some of her braids loose so her handmaiden would have an easier time of sorting through the mess they'd made of it.

It was how Ellaria found them not much later, and she had grinned when she glimpsed Sansa's tranquil face.

"I told you you should have asked to share her bed the first night back," she said, sitting at the edge of the bed at his back and brushing a kiss behind his ear. "I'll call someone to draw you two a bath. I know you don't mind wandering around smelling of sex but I think poor Sansa might." He shot a grin over his shoulder at her before turning his eyes to Sansa once more.

"I love you, El," he said as Ellaria gave him a last kiss to his shoulder before she stood up.

"And I you. Do you think she will join us someday?" He stared a little longer at Sansa then, her lips kissed from petal pink to a passionate red, her neck covered in love bites and flushed red from the scratching of his beard.

"She doesn't like being talked over," Sansa mumbled, only barely awake enough to unbury her face from his chest. Her eyes, blue and lovely, were sleepy as she looked up at him.

"So _she_ shouldn't pretend to be asleep," Ellaria said, reaching down to card some hair from Sansa's face in a gesture that Oberyn recognized as her longing--she'd waited three years for him to come back while being unable to touch this beautiful young woman. He wondered if she'd been able to hide her feelings from Sansa at all--it was not something Ellaria was good at, hiding love and loving.

"I think I heard something about a bath?"

* * *

 

Sansa was glad to soak in the hot water with Oberyn sitting behind her. It felt decadent to bathe this early in the day, and she'd rarely felt so relaxed and calm--despite the aches and twinges her body gave her as protest to the vigorous activities of earlier. She liked knowing she could lean back on him, and he would be there--not somewhere else fighting someone else's war.

"I'm sorry I confused you," she admitted as he kissed her neck and nipped her shoulder before he left off.

"About the babe? There is nothing to apologize for, I merely tried to obey instructions. It is easy to make children, less so to unmake them." She giggled at that and made to get up from the tub--her parents had asked her if she might visit them in the afternoon and if she wanted her hair to be dry she needed to start sooner than later. Oberyn of course lightly tugged her back and slid his hands around her waist, his mouth peppering her shoulder with kisses.

"I have to go, Oberyn, my parents are leaving within the week and have hardly seen me during the last month," she said, twining her fingers with his own and lifting them from around her. As she stood up she looked at him and took his hand to kiss his palm.

"I will come back, my prince, I won't let them steal me away from you. And," she paused, holding his hand between her two, "I love you." He grinned and reeled her down to his lips to kiss her better at that.

"I'm grateful my lady returns my feelings. Now off with you--and ask Ellaria for a silk scarf. I appear to have been rather too enthusiastic this morning and I wouldn't want Lord Stark storming in here with his Valyrian monstrosity of a sword as he looks for my head." She laughed and splashed a little water at him and made for her bedchamber to dress--again--for the day.


End file.
